man, therefore, exert his best influence to suppress this agitation,
which since the recent legislation of Congress is without any
legitimate object.

It is an evil omen of the times that men have undertaken to calculate
the mere material value of the Union. Reasoned estimates have been
presented of the pecuniary profits and local advantages which would
result to different States and sections from its dissolution and of the
comparative injuries which such an event would inflict on other States
and sections. Even descending to this low and narrow view of the mighty
question, all such calculations are at fault. The bare reference to a
single consideration will be conclusive on this point. We at present
enjoy a free trade throughout our extensive and expanding country such
as the world has never witnessed. This trade is conducted on railroads
and canals, on noble rivers and arms of the sea, which bind together
the North and the South, the East and the West, of our Confederacy.
Annihilate this trade, arrest its free progress by the geographical
lines of jealous and hostile States, and you destroy the prosperity and
onward march of the whole and every part and involve all in one common
ruin. But such considerations, important as they are in themselves,
sink into insignificance when we reflect on the terrific evils which
would result from disunion to every portion of the Confederacy - to the
North, not more than to the South, to the East not more than to the
West. These I shall not attempt to portray, because I feel an humble
confidence that the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with
wisdom to frame the most perfect form of government and union ever
devised by man will not suffer it to perish until it shall have been
peacefully instrumental by its example in the extension of civil and
religious liberty throughout the world.